Death is a part of life. It’s the one thing every single human being has in common: we will all experience the death of a loved one, and eventually our own. Planning for the future is uncomfortable to many, and dealing with a loved one’s legacy after their death is a heavy load to place on the plate of someone who is grieving. Lantern is a new company lighting the way with a set of solutions that guide people through every step of the pre-death planning or end of life process. CEO and Co-Founder Liz Eddy is extremely mission-driven by nature as a result of her own life experiences with grief, and she’s the perfect person to build the tools we all will need when dealing with death.

Childhood and Background

Liz grew up in suburban New Jersey with the cosmopolitan influence of Manhattan ever-present in her community. Her earliest endeavors focused on improving the lives of others and educating people on tough topics - in middle school, Liz won the Cease Fire New Jersey essay contest with her piece on gun control. When she was 15, she started a company with two friends that provided a curriculum around dating abuse and domestic violence to her high school. Organic growth took over and quickly the curriculum was used in high schools and universities across the country!

“It made me completely fall in love with the startup energy and pace, but also made me realize I needed to be doing mission-driven work. I loved the idea of doing things around topics people weren’t talking about,” Liz said.

Liz went into a full-time role in mission-oriented work at DoSomething.org right out of undergrad (Liz has a Business and Design degree from Parsons!). Through DoSomething, she became an early team member at the Crisis Text Line, the first free, 24/7, national support line in the US. Her skills in communication and community building made her the right fit to jump into developing the entire go-to-market strategy for the project, at the age of 23.

“It was this strange thing where I felt totally unqualified but our team was like, ‘Hey, we’re launching to people in your age group - you know what people are looking at; you know how people are going to find this.' We ended up reaching every area code in the US within 3 months, faster growth than Facebook.”

The Aha Moment

“Grief is a sort of superpower. I think grief has made me very resilient, very focused, really passionate, but on the flip side, you deal with the loss and the lacking of that person and the fear of other losses. It's a counterbalance.” - Liz Eddy

Liz’s intimate experiences with grief and loss compelled her to create the solution now offered through Lantern. She lost her father as a young girl, and in 2018 she lost her grandmother. Liz was tasked with handling all of the arrangements for her Grandmother’s funeral and legacy and found many obstacles in navigating the process, on top of dealing with grief.

“I expected Lantern to already exist because there’s a startup option for everything on the planet. I thought you could find all the information consolidated into one place,” Liz said. “For the end of life and death, it’s super fragmented and expensive, especially online. It was hard to find help in a tough situation.”

So, Liz set out to create the company she wished she had found at the time - a guiding light for dealing with a death or planning for your own. Lantern offers a step-by-step checklist that helps you cover every base of funeral planning, documentation, and closing out any personal affairs for a loved one you’ve lost. The Lantern system also enables you to create your own end of life plan with detailed guides and support. Lantern’s goal is to lighten the burden of coping with the end of life and death.

“One of the things that I'm the most excited about is creating a way for the end of life planning to become the norm. I think we are very comfortable at this point thinking about retirement and getting life insurance set up. Those are things that are directly discussing death. It’s something we do and we move on, but the end of life planning isn't like that yet. It's more of an uncomfortable thing, and that’s what needs to change. Lantern as a product is a piece of a larger puzzle of changing the way we talk about death,” Liz said.

*Alyssa Ruderman (on left), and Liz Eddy (on right).*

On Finding A Co-Founder

When looking to start Lantern, Liz turned to a long-time work bestie from her days at DoSomething.org, Alyssa Ruderman, who now serves as COO. Liz credits Alyssa with being a brilliant systems thinker who likes to solve tough problems.

“Alyssa and I were naturally meant to be Co-Founders. Our relationship is built on ideas. We own so many domain names. Nothing had ever sunk in like, we should leave our jobs for this, until Lantern,” Liz said.

Looking ahead, Liz and the team are focused on building the Lantern product to serve enterprise customers and working on partnerships and affiliate strategy. Closing a fundraising round this fall, Liz is optimistic about the future for her rapidly growing category.

“One of the things I like to remind people is we are only touching such a small population at this point because we're fighting against something people aren’t talking about. As a business we can't just be a product, we have to be starting a movement. We’re trying to create conversation in the larger cultural context, and bring together the industry as a whole,” Liz said.

The Advice

Liz is a passionate founder working in an industry that requires an extra degree of compassion and care. Follow her advice to turn your ambitions into reality:

If someone is creating something really phenomenal and doing what you want to do, join them instead of duplicating it.
On the flip side, if what you want to do doesn't exist or you can do it in a way no one else can, don't let anyone stop you.
Someone doesn't have to lose for you to win - you don't need to step on anyone to get to where you want to go.
Operate your business with kindness and treat people with kindness. As entrepreneurs, we should be raising each other up!

If you’re facing the difficulties of a loved one’s death or are ready to think about what you want regarding your own, Lantern is here to make it not-so-scary! Explore their resources and get the checklist here.

Photo courtesy of Lantern.

Written by Kendall Embs.